Neighbor Rosicky

Neighbor Rosicky Summary | Part 1 Summary

Neighbor Rosicky is a short story about the life of Anton Rosicky, a man from Czechoslovakia who, in the middle stage of his life, moves to Nebraska to become a farmer and raise a family. During the waning days at the end of his life, Rosicky contemplates his life and his impact on his family and his world.

As the story opens, Anton Rosicky is at the office of the town's doctor, Dr. Ed Burleigh. Rosicky has gone to the doctor for recent shortness of breath and is told that his troubles are not asthma, but heart failure. Dr. Burleigh warns Rosicky that doing farm work will shorten his life, a fact that the sixty-five-year-old Rosicky seems to take in stride. To Rosicky's way of thinking, only women stay inside and work. The doctor's warnings, however, slowly sink in and Rosicky quietly leaves the office.

Dr. Burleigh wishes more than anything that he did not have to deliver this dire news to a man he has known for so many years. The doctor thinks about the time he delivered a baby at the home of Rosicky's wealthy neighbor. No provisions of breakfast were offered at the home where the doctor had spent the night delivering the new baby, so he stopped at the Rosicky farm where he was graciously welcomed with hot food and warm company.

The doctor wonders about the inequity in life that prevents good, hard-working people like the Rosickys from ever really getting ahead, but he also muses that perhaps the Rosickys enjoy their life and do not need the complications of wealth.